I don't think Miki would any longer after being appointed with Toyota exclusively right after 2006 Olympics, so is Taka. Neither Miki nor Taka appears in Toyota's CM. I think it good for them to be able to focus on skating.

I believe Kim has earned more money than all other active figure skaters combined. And she hasn't won the Olympic gold medal yet. ...

If they publish the ranking of Top 10 Most Donating Atheletes at Winter Olympics, I believe Yuna will be No 1, too. Yuna is donation queen.
I'm not that impressed by how much Yuna earns-- With her world best skating & immense popularity, it is not that surprising. Yet, I'm really pleasantly surprised by how much this young lady shares. Recently Yuna donated $100,000 to Haiti, and she's helped lots of the needy including younger skaters suffering from financial difficulty. Yuna's young Olympic partner also received Yuna scholarship. I hope Yuna win Olympic Gold Medal and earn more money-- as a reward not only for her excellent skating, but her angelic generosity

If they publish the ranking of Top 10 Most Donating Atheletes at Winter Olympics, I believe Yuna will be No 1, too. Yuna is donation queen.
I'm not that impressed by how much Yuna earns-- With her world best skating & immense popularity, it is not that surprising. Yet, I'm really pleasantly surprised by how much this young lady shares. Recently Yuna donated $100,000 to Haiti, and she's helped lots of the needy including younger skaters suffering from financial difficulty. I hope Yuna win Olympic Gold Medal and earn more money-- as a reward not only for her excellent skating, but her angelic generosity

Right on How about paying more attention to ' how- much- an athelete- gives' than to' how-much- he/she- earns'?
I believe Yuna is a gold medalist in donation , and who would get silver/bronze?
Though young, Yuna is a Noblesse Oblige-- what a beautiful champion on and off the ice.

Wow. The things you learn

Originally Posted by Bennett

Mao is a symbol athlete of the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC). The JOC supervises the portrait rights of the athletes and gets funding from the cooperations for the use their portrait rights in their commercials. These athletes may contribute to the JOC as a significant source of the JOC income. For the athletes who have a greater earning potential than the amount that the JOC pays back to them (10,000,000 yen - 20,000,000 yen = USD 111,000-USD222,000), this contract may restrict their own income. But I am not sure how flexible their contracts could be.

In any case, people are making a lot of money out of Mao regardless of the proportion that goes to her own pocket. But I wonder if the amount of income matters the quality of life of the athletes themselves, after they come to earn more than enough needed to compete at the elite level.

Miki is hired by Toyota and does not appear in any commercials. So her earning potential would be much limited.

But she used to be a symbol athlete four years ago and appeared at a numerous commercials. People made a lot of money out of Miki. But the publicity did not seem to make her happy at all.

As a side note, people speculated that appearance of Miki at so many commercials might have affected the selection process of the Olympic team four years ago because the JOC earned so much funds from cooperations that used Miki's portrait rights. Their rationale for picking Miki was in a way legitimate because they announced earlier that they would use the point system in which athletes who accumulated higher points during the past two years or so would be picked. So Miki legitimately fulfilled this condition. But her low placement at the Nationals made it very controvertial and called for a lot of speculations.

Very informative-thank you for the information. Just curious-how do you come by this information? I'm impressed!
Yuna is very beautiful (as is Mao) which doesn't hurt her endorsement career, I'm sure.

Right on How about paying more attention to ' how- much- an athelete- gives' than to' how-much- he/she- earns'?
I believe Yuna is a gold medalist in donation , and who would get silver/bronze?Though young, Yuna is a Noblesse Oblige-- what a beautiful champion on and off the ice.

Very informative-thank you for the information. Just curious-how do you come by this information? I'm impressed!

You are welcome. I am interested in politics and economics and get the info from news and blogs in Japanese.

The symbol athlete contracts by the JOC seem to be getting more and more flexible. So I think it plausible to assume that Mao would be on the Forbes list if they disclosed her income, especially because she was probably not on this contract until this season or so. At the same time, it also would be very plausible that she has made a considerate economic contribution to the JOC in their fund raising activities. Thank goodness that she earned her Olympic spot in a convincing manner afer the big slump so that there would be no organizational dilemmas.

Yu-Na also has a bit of extra incentive to skate her best in Vancouver; she will take in an extra $1 million USD if she takes home the gold medal while also topping her own world record of a combined 207.71 points (from LA 2009 Worlds) in the process.
....info taken from article "World record in Vancouver would hand Kim Yu-Na a $1m bonus:

Yu-Na also has a bit of extra incentive to skate her best in Vancouver; she will take in an extra $1 million USD if she takes home the gold medal while also topping her own world record of a combined 207.71 points (from LA 2009 Worlds) in the process.
....info taken from article "World record in Vancouver would hand Kim Yu-Na a $1m bonus:

If Kim wins gold, she will earn at least 5 times what she earned last year, as her endorsements will expand internationally.
The best thing is, she would deserve to earn every single penny.
She will make excellent use of the money also.